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How to Load a Moving Truck

The College Muscle Movers are always ready to help you load up your moving truck… even if you haven’t hired us!

If you’re loading on your own, we’ve got some tips that can help you make the most of the limited space you have in your truck. It only takes a little bit of planning and organizing to safely and securely get as much stuff as possible in there. So let’s get started.

1. Big and Heavy First

It’s not easy to move the big and heavy stuff, so put it in first so you can set it down exactly where you want without any rearranging.

We’re talking major appliances here: fridge, oven, washing machine, that kind of thing. They’ll have a better chance of making the trip safely if you set them down upright, and you’ll find driving easier if you place the heavy weight of them way at the back of the truck, near the cab. That will reduce the chance of fishtailing from poorly distributed weight.

2. Send in the Softness

You’re going to want to keep those big heavy appliances safe, and you’ll want to keep all your more delicate items safe from those big bruisers.

So now is a good time to load in your blankets, mattresses, pillows, towels, and cushions. Place them strategically between and around those big heavy items and you’ve got a nice soft buffer to protect your next load…

3. Furniture

Start with your longer pieces of furniture: couches, sofas, wardrobes, bookshelves, and bed frames. You can use these to line the sides of the moving truck. Place them with any drawers facing the walls of the van to prevent them from opening and falling out.

4. Box It Up

Now’s the time to load in all those boxes into that nice space you’ve created between the appliances at the back and the lengthwise furniture on the sides.

You should be able to fit three layers in there. Put your heaviest boxes at the bottom, the lightest boxes on top, and the ‘just-right’ boxes in between. This is much easier if you happen to have used boxes of the same size.

5. Tetris Time

What’s left? Everything else! Now’s the time to put miscellaneous small and medium-sized objects in all the little spaces left over. Keep it tight, but don’t not to the point of cramming anything.

Use extra cushioning where necessary to protect delicate objects and soften any sharp corners. It’s especially important to keep these smaller items secure and prevent loose items from rolling around.

Keep in mind that you’ll need to adjust these strategies a little depending on the size of the truck and the amount of stuff you have to put in it.

If you’ve got a big truck and not much to put in it, you’ll want to spread items out more to fill up the floor so that there isn’t room for boxes and furniture to shift and slide around.

Lots of stuff and not much room in the truck? It’s okay to pack high, but it takes a lot more care. Consider whether you’d be better off making a second trip, especially if you aren’t moving too far.

No matter how much preparation you’ve done—and we hope our posts have helped you to prepare as much as possible — moving day is always going to be busy.

There are a lot of tasks that you can really only do at the last minute—or just a few days before. So we’ve put together this handy checklist to help you keep track of everything that needs to get done.

Ready… set… move!

1. Change Your Address

If you want your mail to find you, you’ll need to change your address. You can easily do this at the post office, or at the USPS website.

Rerouting mail from your old address can still take time, so you’ll want to make sure you give your new address and contact information directly to people who you know will need it, like your landlord.

2. Change Your Services

3. Sleep

A good night’s sleep is important. You want to be alert and ready to handle any issues that come up. And after all the work you’ve done in the past couple of weeks to get ready, you deserve a rest.

4. Final Pack-Up

Hopefully you’ve been working on packing everything up over the past few weeks so you can take it slow and steady. But there will still be a few items you had to use in the last few days that you’ll need to gather up—bedding, toiletries, food.

Make sure to get it all together, and then once everything’s out of the apartment, do another walkthrough just to make sure—it’s amazing how often small items get left behind in drawers or closets.

This is also a good time to make sure all the paperwork you’ll need to take with you is organized and available.

5. Final Clean-Up

You want to get that security deposit back, right? So you’ll want to do a great job of cleaning, especially messy areas like kitchens and bathrooms.

You’ve probably finished most of that a few days in advance, but you’ll also probably make a few small messes in those last few days of residence and in the process of moving. So once everything is really out of the house, it’s a smart idea to do another quick round of touch-up to leave the place spotless for your landlord.

6. Working with Your Movers

No, we don’t mean the lifting—we’ll take care of that! But it’s always a good idea to be available to help organize and answer questions. So what can you do to help your movers do the best job possible?

Whether you’re using a moving company or handling the job on your own, you’ll want to make sure you have available parking for the moving truck. Make whatever arrangements you need to.

If you’ll be moving some items separately, keep those items in a separate place and make sure the movers know not to take them. You could even load them into your car in advance.

When the movers arrive, it’s a good idea to go around the house with them briefly to point out all the fragile items or anything else that require special attention. If you haven’t already, it’s a good idea to label boxes so the movers know exactly what they’re dealing with and can plan appropriately.

At this point, you should be able to let the movers just do their thing while you take care of any other errands, but it’s still important to be available in case any questions come up or any last-minute documentation requires your approval and signature.

Finally, double-check that your movers have the correct address to deliver to, and make sure they have the correct contact number so they can reach you easily for any updates.

Today, the College Muscle Movers have another set of tips that can improve your move. It’s a little extra chore you can take on while you’re packing up your old place that will make everything go a little smoother when you’re unpacking at your new home.

It’s tempting to just get all your stuff in boxes and be done with the process, but this won’t take long, and all you need is a camera—and these days, almost everybody has a camera in their pocket in the form of a phone.

The idea is to use that handy camera to take pictures of complex features that you’ll take apart for moving and that can take a lot of time to set up again when you’re unpacking.

So, what should you be snapping shots of to make your life easier? Glad you asked…

Electronics

We’ve given you tips before on how to move major electronics like TVs and computers, but what are you supposed to do when you’ve got them safely moved? If you had a complex setup full of cables, wires, speakers, and other accessories, you might have a hard time getting everything hooked up properly again, especially if you’re not especially tech-savvy.

No problem. Just take some detailed, well-lit pictures of those crowded areas where everything plugs in before you start breaking down your setup. They’ll be a big help when you’re ready to put that puzzle back together.

You may even want to print out the photos at a reasonable size and place them in the box with all those wires.

Furniture

Moving furniture usually involves breaking it down into separate pieces, and a lot of modern assemble-yourself furniture is made up of a lot of small pieces that all look the same when you take them back out of the box.

We’ve talked before about some nice options if you’ve got Ikea furniture that needs reassembly, including how to find online copies of those instructions you probably threw away years ago.

But if you’ve got some other brand or aren’t sure what strange Finnish name your furniture had (was it a Flugenvol or a Flargenwomp?), finding those instructions may not be easy. So go ahead and take some nice zoomed-in pictures of those little dowels and whatchamacallits as you disassemble them so you’ll know just where they go when you put them back together.

Expensive and Fragile Items

If you’re moving expensive and fragile items like antiques or fancy computers, you’ll probably want to take some extra care to get more insurance for them than the usual bulk rate.

Then, once you’ve got that insurance, you’ll want to be prepared if the worst happens. No matter which movers you use or which insurance you get, you’ll have a much easier time getting reimbursed for damaged or broken items if you take some pictures of them beforehand.

Make sure your camera is set to apply a time and date stamp to prove the condition of the item before it was moved, and take a few pictures of key areas to show how it looked.

…And More

You can use photos to help you recall organization for many other items too.

Did you have to break up your library so that all the books wouldn’t end up in one super-heavy box? A photo will help you remember the right order for them—or for any other collectibles that had to be rearranged for packing.

You can also take a few quick photos to help you recreate your organizational style for cabinets, kitchen drawers, or other storage spaces.